


He Makes You Laugh Like I Never Could

by PoisonedMind



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Dan Howell/Phil Lester, 2009 era, Amazingphil - Freeform, Angst, DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, Dan Howell - Freeform, F/M, M/M, POV Outsider, Phan - Freeform, Phanfiction, Phil Lester - Freeform, but like not between dnp - they are very fluff-fluff - but it is a sad story i guess, danisnotonfire - Freeform, youtuber!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:38:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonedMind/pseuds/PoisonedMind
Summary: The beginning of Dan and Phil as experienced by Dan's girlfriend.





	He Makes You Laugh Like I Never Could

She’s lying in his bed, and he’s at the desk, watching some weird video on his computer as he’s been doing for the past hour, he’s giggling and she just watches him. She watches him as he slowly becomes obsessed with this YouTube thing, she doesn’t really get it, but it makes him happy, and she smiles and kisses him, says she’s happy for him. 

~

Then it becomes this one YouTuber in particular. He's adorable when he's fangirling over this Phil Lester guy. She laughs, because Dan is cute with his rosy cheeks and glowing eyes whenever he excitedly tells her about whatever antics AmazingPhil got up to this time. 

Phil answered Dan on Twitter, and she couldn't be happier, because Dan is ecstatic, he's hugging her and laughing, carefree and loud, like he hasn't been in a long time, and she smiles and kisses him, she's so happy for him. 

~

Dan tells her how Phil is beginning to notice him now, single him out, always answering _him_ , when Dan tweets him, and she smiles and kisses him, she's so happy for him. 

~

When she comes home one day to find Dan already in her room, quivering with joy, and energy practically exploding from him, she laughs and asks what Phil did this time. He doesn't say anything just smiles, all teeth and stretched out lips, bright joy emitting from his eyes. He turns around and picks up his phone from her bed and shows her that AmazingPhil is now following danisnotonfire, and she smiles and kisses him, she's so happy for him. 

~

It wasn't that he hadn't written back, he did that sometimes, often. It was that he hadn't talked to her in three days, she had seen him in class, but he hadn't spared her a glance, his eyes glued to his phone, fingers flying over the screen as a wide smile spread across his lips, and the soft little lines around his eyes deepened. 

She doesn't say anything, but when he stands outside her door, a sheepish smile on his lips, and too straight hair falling in his eyes, she beckons him in. 

They don't do anything that night, they lie in bed but they don't talk, they don't touch, the silence of the dark encompasses them in a false sense of comfort. Just before her eyes fall closed to the rhythmic breathing of Dan beside her, he shifts on the bed and pulls out his phone, the light from the screen stark and unwelcome in the soft dark of the night. She sighs and Dan looks up, she feels a spark of something in her chest, like she won somehow, something, but then he grins at her and tells her in a voice breaking with glee that Phil asked if he wanted to Skype, and they agreed to talk the next evening, and his smile is illuminated by the light of the screen, so bright, too bright, and she can't help the spark igniting something more, and she realizes she didn't win anything. She smiles and kisses him, she tells herself that she's so happy for him. 

~

The text is from 4:30 in the morning, it lies there blinking at her angrily, accusingly, and she hoists herself up in the bed and opens the notification from Dan. It's not a goodnight, or one of those texts where he can't sleep because his thoughts are too loud, it's short, way too short, and it doesn't actually say anything, but the five exclamation points are screaming at her, and she can't help but think that it's saying everything. 

She texts him back while eating dry cereal, asks him if she's supposed to understand that as a confirmation that the talk with Phil went well. 

Her phone doesn't buzz again before dinner, and she doesn't look at it before she's lying in bed again, the covers tucked up to her ears, a cocoon of makeshift comfort. It's a picture of Dan's computer, but a guy with black hair laughing is covering the whole screen and if she zooms in on the little square in the corner, she can see Dan laughing too, his cheeks red and hot, and she suddenly can't remember ever seeing Dan laugh like that with her. There's a text underneath the picture, too, but she doesn't want to look, a heavy tiredness suddenly settling in her limbs, so she puts the phone face down on the nightstand, closes her eyes, the _yes!! ^_^_ glaring silently down on the wooden surface. 

She doesn't smile until Dan is knocking on her door the next day, an apology on his lips and guilt in his eyes as he clumsily hands her a rose and a heart shaped box of chocolates while mumbling, “I'm sorry, I literally forgot, because I was skyping with Phil until way too late, and then I panicked, but he said I should buy you this and say sorry, so, sorry, and, uhm, happy anniversary, I guess," and she is angry with him but not really, so she takes the presents, and she smiles and kisses him, tells him she's happy that the talks with Phil went well. 

~

She doesn't notice the shift at first. She can't pinpoint the exact moment their conversations went from flowing freely between everything and nothing to this chipped, polite thing, where none of them knows where to stand, so they tread carefully, avoiding anything that could hold potential danger. He asks her how her day was, she answers good, and they lift the corners of their lips a little. She asks if he wants to go see a movie, and he says he can't, he's saving up, and the corners of their lips fall slightly again. The only times he ever really talks, the silence between them filled with more than three-word sentences, is when he bursts, his mind and thoughts too full to keep inside anymore, and he has to tell her, she's used to these ramblings, they come often, how the universe is too vast, how life is meaningless, but they're not the usual ramblings. The universe is still vast, too big to understand, but, somehow, he found Phil, and life is still uncertain, but Phil told him that you can make of it what you want, you just need to have the courage to exist. He rambles, and the floodgate is open now, Phil did this, Phil said that, they're going to meet up next month, so he needs money for the train ticket that's why he can't do much with her right now, sorry, and she smiles and kisses him, tells him she's just happy for him. 

~

Monday, October 19th. The date is ingrained in her mind by now, a permanent fixture forever carved into her brain. 

He can't stop talking lately, and he tells her how he has bought the train tickets now, how Phil wants to show him around Manchester, he tells her that Phil's parents won't be home, so they will be alone in Phil's house, having it all to themselves, his eyes are bright and happy, he's not looking at her, doesn't do that a lot lately, his gaze instead on his phone, on his computer, anywhere that connects him with Phil, and she always just smiles and kisses him, tells him she's really happy for him. 

~

She says goodbye to him on the train station, their kiss brief, because Dan is distracted, he's radiating and nervous, and the train comes hurtling towards them with screeching breaks, and he looks at it with trepidation, she nudges him, tells him to go or he'll miss him, and Dan flinches, glances at her again, and suddenly she realizes that he's not just nervous about meeting Phil. She feels it, too, now, or maybe she has felt it all this time, but the gravitas of their goodbye suddenly weighs a lot more. She squeezes his hand and doesn't think about how he doesn't squeeze back, he's nervous, and she goes up on the tips of her toes and whispers in his ear that he needs to go now, he turns around then, and she smiles, kisses him again, and tells him that she's happy for him. 

~

The moment he comes back, she knows. It doesn't come as a shock, she's not surprised, deep down she knew where they were headed the moment she saw the sparks he ignited in Dan's eyes and the color he painted Dan's cheeks. It still hurts, though. 

The first couple of days after he came back from Phil he spends with her, but she doesn't think he is actually there, because she has to say his name four times before he registers that he drifted off in the middle of his story about him and Phil going on the Manchester Eye, his mouth frozen in a soft smile. He apologizes, and he begins to tell her about the awesome restaurant that Phil brought him to, but she's not listening anymore, fixated on the way his voice caresses Phil's name, and the way his tongue is licking his lips as if trying to taste the remnants of a stolen kiss, and it doesn't surprise her, but it still hurts.

They keep up the pretense that nothing has changed until Dan's phone buzzes, and his lips part in a smile that splits open the already existing crack in her heart. A treacherous tear spills out of the corner of her eye, and she brushes it away fervently, but he notices, and his lips turn downward, and his glance turns sad. He apologizes, and she cries. The phone is forgotten for once, she almost laughs, but he's reaching out to her, and she just can't do that right now, so she gets up, and then they're both standing, and she looks him in the eyes and that seems to pull the trigger, he explains, and apologizes, it's awkward, it's messy, and they both hurt but for different reasons. He wants to cry, too, she can see it, he wants to, but he doesn't, can't, and she knows that, too, so she'll do it for the both of them. He tells her he's sorry, that he never meant to do this to her, ever, and she knows he didn't, but he did do it, anyway, and it hurts her, and he's leaving, turning his back and opening the front door, and she calls out for him, takes his hand. He stills, turns around but steps outside, his eyes are sad but not teary, and his smile is apologetic but not unhappy, and her heart is breaking, the crack in her chest is opening more and more, and she wants to punch him or collapse against him, begging him not to do this, but she knows which fights to fight, and she knows this is one she lost before she even knew she was fighting it. 

Instead she smiles and kisses him, she's happy for him, she really is.

**Author's Note:**

> This story just planted itself in my head without my consent, and it wouldn't go away until I wrote it down, so here, it has been freed and I can now go back to trying to write my other fics.. or something..
> 
> Also, this fic is very, very unbeta'ed, but I did try to proofread it myself, eh.
> 
> I’m [bie-lovers](https://bie-lovers.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to say hi, no pressure. You can also [reblog](https://bie-lovers.tumblr.com/post/165655669636/he-makes-you-laugh-like-i-never-could-title-he) this fic on tumblr if you want to. :)


End file.
